Monday, April 11, 2011

Shambhala Publications has invited me to offer a giveaway of one of their books for Poetry Month. This is the same press that published Natalie Goldberg's influential Writing Down the Bones. This new book, Rip the Page! by Karen Benke, is geared towards children, but might also stimulate some new work from adult readers.

The book is full of ideas to unleash poems and free-write exercises to stimulate children’s natural ability to be creative. Kids will learn to play with words in precisely the same way that many published poets do to warm up for writing. Along the way, they will read notes of encouragement from famous authors like Lemony Snicket and Lucille Clifton.

Here's the product description from Amazon: Here are the ideas, experiments, and inspiration to unfold your imagination and get your writing to flow off the page! This is the everything-you-need guide to spark new poems and unstick old stories, including lists of big, small, gross-out, and favorite words; adventurous and zany prompts to leap from; dares and double dares to help you mash up truths and lies into outrageous paragraphs; and letters of encouragement written directly to you from famous authors, including: Annie Barrows, Naomi Shihab Nye, Lemony Snicket, C. M. Mayo, Elizabeth Singer Hunt, Moira Egan, Gary Soto, Lucille Clifton, Avi, Betsy Franco, Carol Edgarian, Karen Cushman, Patricia Polacco, Prartho Sereno, Lewis Buzbee, and C. B. Follett.

This is your journal for inward-bound adventures—use it to write, brainstorm, explore, imagine—and even rip!

If you'd like to toss your hat into the ring, just post a note in the Comments section of this post. Be sure to let me know how I can contact you if you win. One week from today—that's Monday, April 18—I will randomly select a winner. US residents only, please. Once I have a winner, I'll mail the book to that person.

ShareThis

About Me

I live and write poetry in New Jersey. I am the author of four full-length poetry collections, most recently The Uneaten Carrots of Atonement. My earlier books are Temptation by Water (Wind Pub, 2010), What Feeds Us, which received the 2006 Quentin R. Howard Poetry Prize, and Eve's Red Dress. I am also the author of The Crafty Poet: A Portable Workshop, a how-to book for poets; and the sequel, The Crafty Poet II. My poems appear in a number of anthologies such as Garrison Keillor's Good Poems for Hard Times and in such journals as Harvard Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, and Prairie Schooner. My poems have been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, Ted Kooser's American Life in Poetry, and The Writer’s Almanac. I am the founder, editor, and publisher of Terrapin Books, a small press for poetry books.

Saturday, March 24, 2018, Girl Talk, more than two dozen women poets will read women-related poems in celebration of National History Month, West Caldwell Public Library, Clinton Rd., West Caldwell, NJ. Reading followed by Reception and book signing, 1:00 - 4:00 PM.